Soul Food

Michele Marr

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking world a mother’s love is

not.”

James Joyce

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day. As sure as not it will leave me

engulfed in a jumble of gratitude, sorrow and contemplation.

Often, weeks before the day arrives I revisit my own disappointment

not being a mother. When the day arrives I’ve learned to be polite to

those who tell me I am lucky; I’ve been spared the hardships of

parenting. I know they mean well.

And I’m just as polite to those who tell me my godchildren and nieces

and nephews are my children. Yes, I am a godmother and an aunt, and I

cherish those relationships. But they are not motherhood. Never will be.

All the same, I’m happy to have a day dedicated especially to mothers.

When each of us stops to reflect on where we would be without our

mother, we have to realize that, without her, we would not be here at

all.

It’s a worthy occasion to devote a day to the sweet memories our

mother has given us and to recognize her generous love. It’s a fine thing

for those with mothers whose love has, indeed, been a sure thing in a

sometimes-rotten world.

Which isn’t everyone. The year has been rife with stories that make

that clear. As Mother’s Day approaches, it’s hard not to think about

Andrea Yates and a too-long list of less infamous mothers who killed, or

tried to kill, their children.

Lillie Morgan, like Yates, drowned her children. Ellen Feinberg, a

pediatrician, stabbed her two sons and killed one. Maria Tarrago doused

her 15-year-old daughter with gasoline and ignited her in a jealous rage

over a boyfriend.

There are others. I can’t help but wonder why so many mothers are

killing their children. A friend of mine tsk-tsked me. These mother’s

reasons, she says, are clearly not all the same. And of course she is

right.

Yates was obviously at the end of her rope, if not mentally ill.

Tarrago and Morgan could only be morally bankrupt. Feinberg, the

pediatrician -- what does move a children’s doctor to kill her own

children?

Trust me, I don’t have the answers -- only reflections.

When I entered my childbearing years, motherhood was not expected. In

fact motherhood was kind of uncool. A young woman who chose motherhood --

especially marriage and stay-at-home motherhood -- over education and

career was likely to be regarded as less then bright at best, perhaps

even mildly insane.

She got used to the question, “Is that all you do?” And in a nation

whose sons were dying in Vietnam and in a world that was, the experts

said, severely overpopulating, she had another question to answer, “Why

do you want to bring a child into a world like this?”

In the late 60s and early 70s when I was coming of age, much of our

nation viewed motherhood as irresponsible. To delay or even avoid having

children was a noble thing. Birth control made it possible like never

before. And by 1967, if birth control failed, abortion was the legal,

safe, often encouraged fail-safe.

Women had won a right to education, to participation in the workplace

and to sexual freedom they had scarcely known before. It all seemed like

wonderful stuff. But from this side of utopia, the value of motherhood

and even the value of children seem to have taken a crippling hit.

With each new story I read of a mother killing her children, and even

children killing other children, I find myself wondering if we aren’t now

paying the piper.

Ann Beattie, an exquisite chronicler of the generation who grew up in

the 60s, has described motherhood like this.

“Do everything right all the time and the child will prosper. It is as

simple as that, except for: fate, luck, heredity, chance, his order of

birth, his first encounter with evil, the war being fought when he is a

young man, the drugs he may try one too many times, the friends he makes,

how well he endures kidding about his shortcomings, how ambitious he

becomes, people with hidden agendas and animals with rabies.”

Motherhood is a tough task in the best of times. Ours, I think, are

difficult times. Mothers live in a schizophrenic time that gives them the

right to abortion while it condemns negligence, abandonment and

infanticide.

They live in a time when parents are expected to raise children of

good character in the mushiest of moral ground.

I can’t imagine a job more difficult. Those who have raised their

children well and those who rise each morning to the challenge deserve

far more than candy and cards, floral bouquets and brunches -- but at

least that.

Happy Mother’s Day.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic designer from

Huntington Beach. She has been interested in religion and ethics for as

long as she can remember. She can be reached at o7

[email protected]